UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the International Criminal Court Prosecutor: Investigate the Possibility that Israel is Committing the Crime of Genocide Against the Palestinian People

“I find it deeply disturbing that violence was used against students engaging in peaceful protest,” said Christopher Warren, SJP Treasurer. “Views that normalise genocide and defend war crimes should be consistently challenged at every opportunity.” SJP is committed to opposing Israeli war crimes, and will continue to express our right to peaceful demonstration against genocide apologists on campus.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) welcomes and supports your initiative to encourage people worldwide to write to the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and demand that the UN conduct an enquiry into the possibility that Israel may have committed the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people and publish its findings and recommendations.

In withholding $127 million in Palestinian Authority (PA) customs revenues from the authority, as retaliation for its application to join the International Criminal Court(ICC), the Israeli government has once again dangerously escalated tensions… The Palestinians may also have difficulty in making the case that, however reprehensible, the Gaza killings rise to the ICC prosecution threshold for genocide or war crimes, of “unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity”. Are they a deliberate strategy or the byproducts of a misguided but “legitimate” war? These are legitimate questions and Israel should prepare to answer them instead of taking revenge on those who ask them.

I am writing to you, very disturbed that the UN was created to govern nations of occupying other nations illegally. For 66 years, Israel has committed from single war crimes atrocities to massive massacres since it has been illegally created as a state.

From previous attacks on a civilian population of Palestinians, unarmed, and helpless, from Gaza To The Westbank, Israel has gotten away with acts of war crimes, most recent “Operation Protective Edge”…evidence has been proven the bombing campaign that Israel claimed it did to “defend itself” and destroy tunnels is absurd when UN officials, UNICEF employees and Amnesty have repeatedly told UN that Israel has attacked schools, shelters and hospitals, including arresting and detaining children under the age of 11, wrote reports of the torture and sexual assaults on these children held in Israel prison.

Why isn’t Israel held accountable for breaking these resolutions set forth? Thus far it has repeatedly broken 65 and have not faced repercussions or sancations. Yet any nation that has broken just ONE seems to be held accountable.

We demand an investigation, not only for Israel bombing of Gaza in 2014, but the attacks before. The illegal use of white sulfur on the population of Gaza that many people working with the UN have seen with their own eyes, seen snipers with their own eyes target Palestinians, seen the beating and torture of Palestinians, seen illegal settlers kidnap, beat, kill, run over Palestinians and yet we ask why Palestinians retaliate.

By UN Resolutions, we the Palestinians under illegal occupation have the RIGHT and LAW to resistance occupation.

Asking you again to open a criminal investigation against Israel for their war crimes and do not let the murder of over 2000 people in 2014 in 50 days murders go in vain, as well as the silent holocaust that Palestinians are facing since the illegal creation of Israel.

Many human rights agencies including the International Criminal Court (ICC), the UN Security Council, the Human Rights Council and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights are selective about their commemorations and condemnations. Mass murderers in the USA, Israel, UK and France appear absolutely immune from international sanctions. For example the ICC has ruled repeatedly that there is “insufficient evidence” for it to investigate Israel for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

By not allowing UN representatives to enter its territory to conduct proper research into the allegations of war crimes and mass murder, Israel condemns itself to being labeled as a genocidal regime. The Government ofIsraelhasdenied entryto the countryto the investigatingcommittee appointedin August by theHuman Rights Councilof the UN, which aimedto clarify whetherwar crimeswere committed inGazathis summer during the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

In its short history, ICC has chased down events in relation to crimes of aggression primarily in some countries in Africa. However, despite repeated calls, it continues to ignore calls for investigations into crimes committed by the Israelis against Palestinians. It has remained mysteriously silent on the massacres of the residents of Sabra and Shatilla and the butchery of civilians in Jenin, crafted by Ariel Sharon, the then Israeli prime minister, followed by a public display of pre-designed genocide of women and children of Gaza at the behest of the current Israeli premier, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel calls it MOWING THE GRASS. Sounds like an ecological act.
It is not.
For how much longer will Israel continue its war crimes with Impunity?
For how much longer will Israel hide behind US skirt?
Is there is a ceiling for the number of Palestinian deaths below which Israeli crimes are not a genocide?

The many crimes that Israel commits on a daily basis may once have been hidden behind a wall of secrecy. But that was before Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media enabled everyone with a cell phone and an internet connection to broadcast facts to the world. People around the globe see the horrors that Israel perpetrates, and understand it as all the things the ADL denies: apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and a number of other war crimes.

“But what is even more destructive is the deliberate Israeli policy of ethnic cleansing in Area C and in Jerusalem. Israelis get very upset when we use terms like Ethnic Cleansing or like Genocide or like War Crimes or Massacres,” Ashrawi said. “And I tell Israelis if the word disturbs you, you should see the actions. If you don’t like the word, then don’t do it. If you don’t like being described as the country that uses war crimes and ethnic cleansing than stop using ware crimes and ethnic cleansing and we won’t use the language. It is the action itself that is the significant part.”